Hiding Behind His Armor
by DoctorDo
Summary: Gunrunner loses friends and gains some more. Pre-Earth, Cybertron, and the like.


_It's all right. I'll make sure you all survive._

Tractor Beam fell to sprays of laser and shrapnel. He had a Conjunx Endura back in Kalis.

 _This might be a bit difficult, but we'll make it through. I promise._

There went the right flank. Three brothers, closer together than forged alloy. Had huge dreams for after the war. They were going to open a transport business in their home province.

 _Every. Single. One of you._

The old war veteran, Gunrunner's friend from ages past, was cut down in a hail of bullets right in front of him. He screamed in sync with Gunrunner in pain rather than anguish.

 _Make no mistake, you are all under my wings._

That line was a throwaway joke when Gunrunner had given it. Now it contained a concentrated dose of guilt and disbelief that hit him like a Bruiser's piledriver.

The smoke was so thick, so unbelievably thick, that Gunrunner couldn't even see the attackers. He swiveled his Pretender shell around, trying his hardest to acquire a target, just one measly Decepticon that was cutting his subordinates, the people he had come to love over the past solar cycle, to ribbons. He failed. Another flank fell. That one contained a family and their close friend.

Something inside him snapped, and he fired everything in his already impressive armory into the impenetrable smoke.

Suddenly, the gunfire stopped completely.

Had he done it?

Had the slaughter stopped?

For a few moments, there was no sound but the crackling of flames and the wind trying so, so hard to clear away the viscous, opaque smoke. Gunrunner looked around. Campus, Jackknife, and Vengeance were still functional, taking in the relative silence with a quiet sort of awe.

"Is that. . . it?"

"You. . . lied to us, Gunrunner. How could y-"

A loud whistling shattered the silence and whatever Vengeance was about to say next. Gunrunner recognized the sound. He didn't like it.

"Scrap! Everyone get under me, NOW!"

Jackknife recognized it too. His optics widened in fear and desperation as he took hold of Campus's arm and started towards Gunrunner's shell. Vengeance made a flying dive, but they were all too late. Gunrunner saw it as if it were in slow motion: The bomb landed perfectly on top of Vengeance, crumpling his helm, head, and most of his torso like paper immediately before exploding. Jackknife and Campus were eradicated in the blast, stripped away.

Gunrunner had barely a moment to register this before the blast hit him. Heat beyond anything he had felt before seared his alloy, causing it to bubble and turn to liquid. He knew most of his shell was destroyed, because he felt it. It was like dying in a horrible firestorm but it didn't kill him. And then he was impaled lengthwise by a piece of shrapnel.

This shrapnel was what remained of Jackknife, his burned and mangled head staring up at Gunrunner with a look of pure betrayal barely readable on its disfigured features. Faced with this awful sight and shutting down from his injuries, Gunrunner blacked out.

 _Hey, Tyrant._

 _What do you want, Lockbox?_

 _There's a Pretender here. Looks-_

 _Like he's dead. Yeah. That's because he is, you useless piece of slag. Look at those injuries. I honestly don't think Soundwave could survive that._

 _Can I shoot him?_

 _Why would you want to? He's dead. None of these Autobytes even killed one of your friends._

 _But I just want-_

 _No, Lockbox. We have to move anyway. Megatron wants us back to the_ Nemesis _by high moon. We're launching next cycle. C'mon._

 _Ugh. Fine. You're such a killjoy._

Gunrunner came back online. It was bright out, brighter than almost any day he'd seen on Cybertron. Two smoke plumes far, far in the horizon etched into the sky even above the mountains. They were bright white and beautiful, yet the air itself carried a message of forlornness. Every millimechanometer of his body was in severe pain, but nothing compared to the pain he felt in his spark. All those good people dead. It wouldn't do any good to grieve, not now. Gunrunner had to keep moving forward.

He wouldn't die today. His shell proved that. He ran a diagnostic of his overall systems and was not surprised to find that nearly everything was damaged to some extent. He'd be amazed if he could ever walk again. Gunrunner tried to move his arm, just a little. It moved, but with an awful stabbing pain. Frankly, his arm was almost sealed up with his cooled melted alloy and he was glad he even had functional elbow articulation.

He reached past Jackknife's corpse and pressed the large green emergency systems button. His shell, through the miracles of Cybertronian technology, activated with a dreadful coughing noise that would have made him cringe if those systems were online. An HUD appeared on his visual interface, though glitchy and scattered. He felt his shell's life support systems come online, but Gunrunner frantically shut them off with a thought. He didn't know what would happen if he had let them continue, but with a corpse inside the shell - inside Gunrunner - he guessed the results wouldn't be pretty. Thus, he rerouted the self-repair systems to the shell itself. He had to run away. Far away.

He drove for what seemed like cycles, even though barely an astrohour had passed. The pain, of course, stayed with him as his shell slowly regenerated itself. Pain was an old friend to him now, but he wished Jackknife would stop staring at him, reminding him of his failure.

Soon the shell crested a ridge, revealing one of Cybertron's many megahighways. This one was relatively small, only about thirty miles wide. It was packed with Autobots of all shapes and sizes, all of them trudging resignedly north. Evidently, they had just lost a battle. But none of them were damaged. Unlike Gunrunner.

He only made it to the highway before blacking out again.

When Gunrunner woke up, he was lying down in a sheet-metal tent. The pain was mostly gone, replaced by an ache that spread through his body. The pain in his spark had likewise been replaced by a gnawing, terrible ache that made him feel empty inside. His spirit, once gung-ho, crushed. The Pretender shell was nowhere to be seen, but Gunrunner's internal systems told him it was completely repaired and recharged, sitting just outside the tent. Good. One thing that healed easily and moved on. Suddenly, the tent flap opened and a blue and red femme stepped in gingerly. Grateful to have a pass from his melancholy thoughts, Gunrunner cleared his vents softly.

"Oh! Good, you're up. How are you feeling? You were really taken to pieces out there. I worried you weren't going to make it, but Salve insisted he could save you. He pitched his tent quick as a flash (metaphorically speaking, of course) and hooked you up to a spare recharge cot. Oh, you should have seen it. The operation was _so_ terrifying, your spark almost flatlined like three times and Salve was showing emotion (which is really rare for him) as he cut that other guy out of you and Contakt almost threw up and-"

"Cyclone! Chill. Also, I did not almost throw up. I just had to reboot, hadn't done it in a while." A red bot with accents of white and green around his joints stepped in and lightly placed his hand on the femme's shoulder. He was spindly, but it looked like he was a Destroyer class judging by his alt-mode parts visible on his frame.

"Didn't you see the battlefield?" he said to the femme - Cyclone, Gunrunner reminded himself - in an undertone. "Evac saw it on his perimeter check, and it was horrible. That 'other guy' you're speaking so flippantly about could have been. . . you know. . ."

"Could have been. . ." Cyclone's optics widened in shock. "Oh my Primus, I'm sorry sir! I didn't mean it and I was just talking and I'm sorry I didn't think he might have been-"

"It's all right." Gunrunner's voice was weary and quiet. "All of them were special to me in one way or another. I know you didn't mean anything. He was a friend of my brother. What. . . happened to them?"

Cyclone looked at Contakt for a moment before replying. "We buried them, gave them as nice of a funeral as we could. I'm so sorry."

"Where?"

"On the roadside. Behind the tent. You can see it when you're better. But for now you should-"

Gunrunner was already making to get up. He grunted as he yanked the cables and tubes holding him to the slab out. Cyclone and Contakt tried to hold him down, but Gunrunner was easily twice their combined mass. He went out of the tent and behind it. There were three other bots sitting around a fire, but Gunrunner paid them no heed as he turned the corner and kneeled on the freshly dug ground. There was a small headstone, not befitting the lives of the people he had worked with. It would suffice. It's not like he could hire a welder to make a proper monument in these times of war anyways. He could feel his optics emitting some fluid, but he didn't care. Gunrunner allowed a single drop of lubricant to fall to the ground under which his friends lay. He looked up and saw the five Autobots standing there: Cyclone, with hands clasped and a bit of an optical fluid leak herself, Contakt, who viewed the scene with a somber and weary air, an elderly Infiltrator with a Medic's crest (Gunrunner guessed it was Salve) watching with quiet respect, a young-looking orange copter, and a burly Titan class with two double barreled turrets sticking up from his back. He could meet these people and get to know them as well as he had known those who had died. He could know their aspirations and woes, their loved ones or lack thereof.

Or he could move on.

Gunrunner stood up and started towards the gathering of bots. He gently pushed his way through them and kept walking. His Pretender shell activated with a thought, and opened up its frame to reveal a space for him. Climbing in, Gunrunner willed the shell to close over him. Commander and shell became one once more.

Gunrunner activated the intercom link. "Okay. I'll help you pack up camp," his shell broadcasted in a voice as quiet and measured as he thought it to be. "You can store it in my driver's compartment, and then we'll head north. Not by the highway, though. Going overland will be much faster, and less likely to contain Decepticon ambushes. Copter-bot, you can scout ahead in case we do happen across any. Everyone else, stay close to me. I'll make sure you all s-"

He cut himself off and cursed. That was the kind of attitude that got his last group killed.

"I can't guarantee you anything. But I'll try to the Pit to keep you all safe.


End file.
